WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #488, JUNE 6, 1999
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499
1. Argentines March to Protest Arms Factory Explosion
2. Civic Strike in Bolivian Province
3. Chile: Socialist Wins Coalition Primary
4. Chilean Dictator OK'd Bomb Attacks
5. Thousands Rally Against Army School
6. Guatemala: Sentences Upheld for Attackers of US Students
7. New Salvadoran President Inaugurated
8. Colombia: Senator Freed, Church Kidnapping, Campesinos Flee
9. Venezuelan Prisoners on Hunger Strike
10. Court Orders Peru to Retry Chileans
11. Mexican Troops Occupy Rebel Town
12. Mexico: Cardinal's Murder Still Unsolved
13. Protests Shake Suriname's Presidency
14. Cuba Sues US for Damages, Charges NATO Head with War Crimes
15. In Other News: Haiti & Brazil
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*1. ARGENTINES MARCH TO PROTEST ARMS FACTORY EXPLOSION
Braving intense cold, more than 6,000 people (10,000 according to
the alternative news service Pulsar) marched on June 3 in the
city of Rio Tercero, in Argentina's Cordoba province, to demand
"Truth, justice and reparations" some three and a half years
after a military munitions factory blew up in this city of 47,000
people on Nov. 3, 1995. Marchers demanded reparations for "moral
and economic damages" caused by the blast, which killed seven
people and injured 300, and called for "laws that would allow the
industrial reactivation" of the area. Following the explosion,
the Rio Tercero arms factory laid off 424 of its workers--more
than half the workforce. Homes that were damaged in the blast
have not been properly repaired, according to local residents.
Residents are also demanding to know whether the explosion was
intentional--a federal prosecutor has argued that it was an
attempt to hide evidence of illegal weapons shipments to Peru and
Croatia [see Update #484]. The march was followed by a rally and
religious service, closing with a three-minute electricity
blackout during which people held up candles, flashlights and
cigarette lighters, to "shine the light upon truth and justice."
[Clarin (Buenos Aires) 6/4/99; Agencia Informativa Pulsar 6/4/99]
*2. CIVIC STRIKE IN BOLIVIAN PROVINCE
On June 4, residents of the Bolivian department of Santa Cruz
ended four days of highway blockades and a 12-hour civic strike
that shut down the airports and principal access roads linking
the province to the rest of the country. The actions were
>designed to pressure the government to grant $10 million to
>producers to pay off micro-loans with banks and agricultural
>cooperatives; and raise tariffs on Brazilian sugar imports to
>40%. Alfonso Moreno, president of the Committee for Santa Cruz,
>said the strike and roadblocks covered the entire department--the
>country's largest in land area--although he admitted that it was
>weaker than he had hoped. He attributed this to the short lead
>time in organizing the action, divisions in the civic and labor
>movement--transport workers did not participate, for example--and
>the militarization of the highways.
>
>The roadblocks began on May 31, and were called off at noon on
>June 4 after the government threatened to use force to reopen the
>highways. The one-day civic strike by producers included a mass
>march and rally on June 4 in the departmental capital, Santa
>Cruz, by agricultural producers, civic and business leaders,
>students and others. The Civic Committee has called a 15-day
>truce while it determines its next steps in the pressure
>campaign. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 6/5/99 from AFP; La Razon (La
>Paz) 6/5/99; Los Tiempos (Cochabamba) 6/5/99]
>
>The Bolivian Workers Central (COB), the country's main union
>federation, has called a national general strike for June 9 to
>pressure the government to take worker demands into account. The
>decision to call the strike was made at a June 1 assembly of
>union delegates, where participants expressed anger that
>government authorities had not attended dialogue sessions set up
>between the unions and government. The government has rejected a
>series of demands which the COB presented in negotiations at the
>beginning of May. [Agencia Informativa Pulsar 6/2/99]
>
>*3. CHILE: SOCIALIST WINS COALITION PRIMARY
>
>Socialist Party leader Ricardo Lagos won the internal elections
>of Chile's ruling Concertation of Parties for Democracy on May 30
>with an overwhelming 71.34% of the vote, compared with 28.66% for
>Senate president Andres Zaldivar of the Christian Democratic
>Party (PDC), the party of current president Eduardo Frei. "I will
>be the candidate of all the Concertacion, to be the president of
>all Chileans," said Lagos as he accepted his nomination as the
>center-left coalition's presidential candidate. In presidential
>elections on Dec. 12, Lagos will face candidate Joaquin Lavin of
>the rightwing Independent Democratic Union (UDI), who is running
>on a coalition ticket with the National Renewal (RN) party.
>[Reuters 5/30/99 on El Mercurio (Santiago) web site; El Nuevo
>Herald 6/1/99 from Reuters]
>
>The leadership of the PDC presented its resignation the day after
>the elections, accepting responsibility for Zaldivar's defeat and
>the failure of its political strategy of seeking rightwing votes
>by drawing closer to former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet,
>currently under house arrest in Britain for torture and
>terrorism. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 6/1/99]
>
>*4. CHILEAN DICTATOR OK'D BOMB ATTACKS
>
>As Spain continues its efforts to extradite former Chilean
>dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to face trial for incidents
>of murder and torture committed under his rule, a US prosecutor
>has declared that Pinochet personally approved orders for a 1974
>attack against exiled Gen. Carlos Prats, a opponent of his
>regime, according to a report published by the Argentine daily La
>Nacion. Prats and his wife Sofia Cuthbert were killed in a car-
>bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in September 1974. US
>prosecutor Eugene Propper uncovered evidence of Pinochet's role
>in the killing when he was in charge of investigating the 1976
>car-bombing murder in Washington of another Pinochet opponent--
>Chilean former foreign minister Orlando Letelier, who was killed
>along with his US aide, Ronni Karpen Moffitt. The US government
>"didn't have authority or jurisdiction" over the Prats case, said
>Propper, but in the course of the Letelier investigation "we
>learned how it had happened." "Contreras wanted to do it and
>Pinochet approved it," said Propper. Gen. Manuel Contreras was
>the top chief of the National Intelligence Department (DINA),
>Pinochet's secret police. He is currently serving a seven-year
>sentence in a Chilean prison for the Letelier murder.
>
>Argentine judge Maria Servini de Cubria and prosecutor Jorge
>Alvarez Berlanda, who are investigating the Prats case,
>interviewed Propper during a recent visit to Washington. Propper
>said the US Justice Department has offered Argentine authorities
>information that could be used for the Prats case. A key witness
>is Michael Townley, a former DINA agent that Servini has asked to
>question. Townley has been living in the US under the witness
>protection program since he confessed his role in the Letelier
>murder and cooperated with its investigation. Other former DINA
>agents and Chilean military officers are also being protected in
>the US. In Washington, Servini and Berlanda signed a
>confidentiality pact with US authorities to guarantee discretion
>in the investigation.
>
>In his statements, Propper was skeptical about any significant
>declassification of US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
>documents related to the 1973 coup in Chile, in which Pinochet
>ousted democratically elected socialist president Salvador
>Allende. "They'll never do it, for any case," said Propper. "If
>they do it, it will end with the intelligence agencies... The US
>government would never ask the CIA to declassify its documents."
>
>On May 13, the US House of Representatives approved an amendment
>introduced by Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), which requires the
>intelligence agencies to hand over to Congress their documents
>about the coup. "These documents must be brought to light, and
>their publication will substantially reinforce the trial and the
>extradition request for Pinochet," says the amendment. Hinchey
>says his goal is to find answers to "important questions about
>the involvement of the CIA, the State Department and then-
>secretary of state Henry Kissinger in the overthrow of President
>Salvador Allende." [El Pais (Spain) 5/25/99]
>
>On May 18 about 25 people demonstrated outside a hotel in Toronto
>against Henry Kissinger, who now heads his own consulting firm.
>Hoping to make a citizens' arrest of Kissinger under the Canadian
>War Crimes Act, the protesters spent an hour trying to gain
>entrance to the exclusive luncheon where he was the guest speaker
>for a crowd of 1,000 business executives. "If...Pinochet can be
>arrested and face trial for crimes against humanity, then the men
>who placed Pinochet in power and kept him there, including Henry
>Kissinger, should be held accountable as well," said Brent
>Patterson of Toronto Action for Social Change (TASC). Another
>protester, Matthew Behrens, said Kissinger is "guilty of ethnic
>cleansing in countries around the world: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos,
>Greece, Argentina, Brazil." After hotel security complained,
>police threw out the protesters and charged four people with
>trespassing. [Toronto Star 5/19/99]
>
>*5. THOUSANDS RALLY AGAINST ARMY SCHOOL
>
>Thousands of activists protested the US Army's School of the
>Americas (SOA) during a four-day series of events and protests in
>Washington, DC May 1-4. SOA Watch, the sponsor of the event, is
>demanding the closing of the 53-year old school, whose graduates
>include some of Latin America's most notorious human rights
>abusers. About 3,000 people joined a rally on May 1 that featured
>folk singer Pete Seeger. On May 3, more than 2,000 people
>encircled the Pentagon, carrying crosses and a giant puppet--of a
>skull wearing a graduation cap--to represent SOA; 55 people were
>arrested in a civil disobedience action.
>
>At an Apr. 29 press conference, Reps. Joe Moakley (D-MA), Joe
>Scarborough (R-FL), John Lewis (D-GA), James McGovern (D-MA),
>Bruce Vento (D-MN) and Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) called for closing
>the SOA. Moakley is sponsoring a bill, HR 732, that would shut
>the school down. Scarborough, a conservative, said the US support
>for Latin American militaries had made its "fight for freedom and
>democracy around the world [appear] hypocritical." [SOA Watch
>press release 5/3/99; Inter Press Service 4/29/99; Peace
>Newsletter (Syracuse Peace Council) June 1999]
>
>*6. GUATEMALA: SENTENCES UPHELD FOR ATTACKERS OF US STUDENTS
>
>On June 2, Guatemala's 12th Circuit Appeals Court upheld the 28-
>year prison sentences of two of the three Guatemalans convicted
>of attacking a group of US citizens in Escuintla department on
>Jan. 16, 1998. The group of 13 students and three faculty members
>from St. Mary's College in Maryland was returning from a visit to
>Mayan ruins during a college study tour in Guatemala when their
>bus was stopped by seven heavily armed men. All 16 were robbed,
>and five of the students were raped [see Update #417]. Cosby
>Gamaliel Ortiz, Rony Leonel Polanco Sil and Reyes Guch Ventura
>were identified by their victims when the trial began at a court
>in Escuintla on Jan. 22; on Feb. 8 they were convicted and
>sentenced to 18 years for rape and 10 years for robbery, with no
>possibility of parole. The appeal on behalf of Gamaliel and Guch
>was denied. Defense attorneys can still appeal to the Supreme
>Court. [Miami Herald 6/3/99; Guatemala Hoy 6/3/99; La Nacion
>(Costa Rica) 2/9/99 from AP; Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 2/9/99; El
>Nuevo Herald (Miami) 2/9/99 from AFP, 2/10/99]
>
>Defense lawyer Salvador Herrera said on Feb. 9 that the court's
>verdict was the result of "pressures exercised by the US Embassy"
>in Guatemala. A fourth suspect, Jose Alfredo Hernandez Torres, is
>in custody and will be tried separately. Three suspects remain at
>large. [LN 2/9/99 from AP; PL 2/9/99; ENH 2/9/99 from AFP,
>2/10/99]
>
>*7. NEW SALVADORAN PRESIDENT INAUGURATED
>
>Francisco Flores of the rightwing Nationalist Republican Alliance
>(ARENA) was sworn in as president of El Salvador on June 1, along
>with his vice president, Carlos Quintanilla. Flores replaces
>ARENA's Armando Calderon Sol; he will serve until 2004. This is
>ARENA's third consecutive term controlling the presidency. "The
>first and most urgent task of our government consists in
>promoting jobs and encouraging all businesses to create
>employment as the only alternative against marginalization and
>poverty," Flores said in his inauguration speech. He also said he
>would work to stabilize the nation's currency and eliminate the
>possibility of the government arbitrarily carrying out a
>devaluation. Many criticized the inauguration speech, including
>San Salvador archbishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez, who noted that
>Flores failed to clearly address the issue of structural violence
>in Salvadoran society. [La Nacion (Costa Rica) 6/2/99 from AP,
>AFP; El Nuevo Herald 6/2/99 from AP]
>
>On May 31, the night before the inauguration, the bodies of four
>young men were discovered at the Buenos Aires farm some 15
>kilometers north of San Salvador. Their hands were tied behind
>their backs and they were shot execution style in the head--the
>trademarks of rightwing death squad killings. Police said they
>will investigate but they believe the killings were common
>crimes. The four victims were from the village of El Progreso;
>they worked bringing campesinos to the San Salvador volcano and
>none of them had any criminal record. The bodies were found at
>the same site where the body of murdered radio journalist Lorena
>Saravia was found in August 1997 [see Update #396]. [Agencia
>Informativa Pulsar 5/31/99, 6/1/99]
>
>*8. COLOMBIA: SENATOR FREED, CHURCH KIDNAPPING, CAMPESINOS FLEE
>
>Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba was freed unharmed on June 4 in
>the municipality of Necocli, Antioquia department, by the United
>Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the rightwing paramilitary
>group which had abducted her on May 21 in Medellin [see Update
>#486]. Cordoba immediately offered to serve as a mediator between
>the government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), to obtain
>the release of dozens of worshippers the ELN kidnapped from a
>church mass in Cali on May 30. "From here [I want] to ask the
>National Liberation Army to free the people they have kidnapped,"
>said Cordoba in her first comments to Caracol television after
>being released. [CNN en Espanol 6/4/99 with info from AP] Cordoba
>also stated that the paramilitaries have a genuine interest in
>peace. "The country has to consider this other actor in the
>conflict," said Cordoba, referring to the paramilitaries. [El
>Nuevo Herald 6/5/99 from AP]
>
>Gen. Jaime Canal, commander of the Army's Third Brigade, said
>that the ELN worked together with the Revolutionary Armed Forces
>of Colombia (FARC) to kidnap the 143 worshippers from the church.
>[El Universal (Caracas) 6/4/99] Shortly after the kidnapping, 79
>of the victims were released as the rebels tried to evade pursuit
>by army and police troops. Cali mayor Ricardo Cobo told Agence
>France Presse that the captives included "persons that are very
>influential in our society," without identifying them. The
>kidnapping has been widely condemned both inside Colombia and by
>the international community.
>
>The ELN continues to hold 25 of the 46 passengers its troops
>abducted from a small passenger plan hijacked on Apr. 12 in
>northern Colombia [see Update #484]. The rebels said the
>hijacking was aimed at pressuring the government into initiating
>a dialogue with the group, as it has with the FARC. The ELN is
>demanding a demilitarized zone similar to the area accorded to
>FARC rebels as a precondition for peace talks. President Andres
>Pastrana Arango has so far rejected the ELN's demand, and the
>kidnapping of the churchgoers only appeared to irritate him
>further. Speaking to Colombian reporters accompanying him on a
>visit to Canada, Pastrana called the mass abduction of the
>churchgoers an "act of war" by the ELN. [AFP 5/31/99] The ELN
>freed five of the hostage churchgoers on June 5 for
>"humanitarian" reasons; it continued to hold 54 others. [ENH
>6/6/99 from Reuters]
>
>Meanwhile, Pastrana signed a decree on June 6 extending the
>FARC's control of the southern demilitarized zone for six months,
>from June 7 until Dec. 7. An announcement by peace negotiator
>Victor Ricardo that the zone would be extended for an indefinite
>period had provoked the resignation of the country's defense
>minister [see Update #487]. [ENH 6/6/99 from Reuters]
>
>Meanwhile, some 2,000 Colombian campesinos fleeing paramilitary
>violence crossed the border into Venezuela from June 3 to 5.
>Venezuela classified the group as refugees and negotiated with
>Colombia to return them to the Colombian town of Puerto
>Santander. [ENH 6/6/99 from AFP; EU 6/4/99, 6/5/99]
>
>*9. VENEZUELAN PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE
>
>A group of 56 prisoners at El Dorado prison in the southern
>Venezuelan state of Bolivar began a hunger strike on May 31 to
>demand that they be returned from this remote jungle facility to
>the urban jails where they had been held previously. Another 300
>prisoners joined the hunger strike on June 3. If authorities
>don't meet their demands, the prisoners are threatening to carry
>out what they call a "blood strike," in which they will commit
>mass suicide. Newly appointed interior minister Ignacio Arcaya
>confirmed to journalists that the hunger strike was taking place,
>and said he would visit the prison soon. Most of the prisoners
>had been transferred to El Dorado from Yare prison in Miranda
>state, next to Caracas. Prisoners at Yare also complain of human
>rights violations. Most of Venezuela's 26,000 prisoners have not
>been sentenced, and the prison facilities are seriously
>overcrowded and plagued with violence. [El Nuevo Herald 6/4/99
>from AFP]
>
>After being sworn in on June 1, Arcaya acknowledged that the
>human rights of prisoners are being violated daily, and said he
>is committed to finding short, medium and long-term solutions to
>the situation. "We can't solve the crime problem by taking the
>repressive and executive route," said Arcaya, emphasizing that a
>solution will require the participation of the church,
>neighborhood associations and the general public. [El Universal
>(Caracas) 6/2/99]
>
>The Support Network for Justice and Peace, Venezuela's main
>independent human rights group, staged a silent demonstration in
>front of the Congress building in Caracas on June 1 to draw
>attention to a proposal that the Constitution expressly classify
>torture as a human rights violation and that it include
>mechanisms to prevent violence and abuse of authority. Protesters
>held photographs of the victims of police and military abuse.
>Support Network member Soraya el Achkar explained that a
>coalition effort called Forum for Life has been created by more
>than 16 Venezuelan non-governmental human rights groups in order
>to push for the classification of torture as a human rights
>violation within the Constitution and the Penal Code. El Achkar
>said that although the current Constitution is good, it could be
>improved with the inclusion of the right to conscientious
>objection, and provisions on the subject of public safety and
>police authority. [EU 6/2/99]
>
>*10. COURT ORDERS PERU TO RETRY CHILEANS
>
>On June 1, the Inter-American Human Rights Court (CIDH) of the
>Organization of American States (OAS) ordered the Peruvian
>government to grant a new trial to four Chilean nationals serving
>prison sentences in Peru on charges of "terrorism" and "treason
>to the homeland." The Court ruled that the Chileans' trial was
>"not valid" because it violated nine articles of the American
>Convention on Human Rights. The CIDH, based in Costa Rica, also
>ordered the Peruvian government to pay $10,000 to the relatives
>of the four. Jaime Francisco Sebastian Castillo Petruzzi, Maria
>Concepcion Pincheira Saez, Lautaro Enrique Mellado Saavedra and
>Alejandro Luis Astorga Valdez, were convicted for their alleged
>involvement with the leftist rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary
>Movement (MRTA).
>
>There are 4,000 people serving sentences in Peru for "terrorism"
>or "treason to the homeland." The CIDH decision clarified that
>Peru's legal definition of treason does not carry implications of
>loyalty based on nationality; the Court explicitly recognized
>Peru's right to try foreigners for the crime of "treason to the
>homeland," as long as due process is respected.
>
>In Lima, Fujimori immediately rejected the CIDH ruling,
>reiterating that "the Peruvian government is not going to free
>terrorists." "This sentence goes against the Peruvian
>Constitution, which establishes that once there has been a trial
>there can't be a second trial, and it goes against Peruvian
>sovereignty and the internal security of the country," said
>Fujimori. [CNN en Espanol 6/3/99 with info from Reuters; La
>Republica (Lima) 6/5/99]
>
>On June 4 Attorney General Miguel Aljovin Swayne and National
>Terrorism Court president Marcos Ibazeta both indicated that Peru
>should respect the CIDH ruling. Aljovin noted that the CIDH
>decision did not ask that the four Chileans be freed, only that
>they be given a new civilian trial where their lawyers can defend
>them without restrictions. Izabeta emphasized that the civilian
>court system can conduct a trial for any crime, so there would be
>no problem with having civilian judges try the four Chileans.
>
>Members of Peru's Supreme Court also told the opposition daily La
>Republica on June 4 that the government should comply with the
>CIDH ruling to avoid any consequences, and emphasized that "with
>a little intelligence and common sense" it would be possible to
>do this without freeing anyone or paying any money. The Supreme
>Court members, who asked that their names not be identified, said
>the Chileans could be tried publicly in a civilian court, "where
>they would also receive a life sentence," according to La
>Republica.
>
>The Supreme Court members noted that a year ago they had
>requested that the four Chileans and US national Lori Berenson--
>who is serving a life sentence in Peru for supporting the MRTA--
>be publicly tried by civilian judges, because it was predictable
>that the CIDH would rule against Peru. The Supreme Court members
>said the government rejected their proposal for political
>reasons. "The only thing we managed to get was the transfer of
>Lori Berenson from the Yanamayo-Puno prison to the one at
>Socabaya-Arequipa, one day before the Inter-American Human Rights
>Commission was to look at her case," which has similar
>characteristics to that of the Chileans, they said. They added
>that Berenson's transfer prevented a possible precautionary
>ruling in her favor by the Commission. The Supreme Court and the
>judicial branch of government have maintained an official silence
>on the subject, "because it's too politicized," said the sources
>cited by La Republica. [LR 6/5/99]
>
>*11. MEXICAN TROOPS OCCUPY REBEL TOWN
>
>Some 300 residents of the indigenous community of Nazaret in the
>southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas fled to nearby mountains
>after about 1,000 soldiers and police agents entered the village
>the night of June 4, according to witnesses. Nazaret is
>considered a base of support for the rebel Zapatista National
>Liberation Army (EZLN). "Instead of dialogue, the government
>sends soldiers," one of the residents told a reporter, referring
>to the suspension of peace talks which began shortly after the
>EZLN rose up in January 1994. "We don't have anything to eat or
>to cover ourselves with, we don't have clothes or food," said
>another resident.
>
>The general in charge of the military operation, who asked to be
>identified as "F. Rivas," said the troops would remain in the
>village "until I receive orders from my superiors." According to
>Armando Cruz Hernandez, an official from the state attorney
>general's office, "[t]he operation is to verify the situation,
>and we had reports that there was a [rebel] roadblock on the road
>in the area of El Paraiso, about 2 km from here. But we haven't
>found anything." Nazaret residents say that similar invasions by
>the police and military have taken place over the past month at
>the nearby communities of Censo, Betania and San Geronimo Tulija.
>[CNN en Espanol 6/5/99, some from Reuters]
>
>EZLN supporters had set up roadblocks in the area the weekend of
>May 29; authorities from the pro-EZLN autonomous municipality of
>Ricardo Flores Magon said the roadblocks were intended to stop
>the entry of drugs and alcohol, and materials which the
>government was sending to communities willing "to be part of the
>counterinsurgency."
>
>On June 1, some 200-300 supporters of the ruling Institutional
>Revolutionary (PRI) set up their own roadblock at the Pinales
>crossroads on the border between Ocosingo and Chilon
>municipalities, stopping people they considered rebel
>sympathizers. They detained a Catholic priest and three lay
>religious workers: Father Jeronimo Alberto Hernandez Lopez;
>Manuel Perez Constantino, leader of the Xi'Nich movement and a
>member of the National Indigenous Congress; Jesus Hernandez
>Gutierrez; and Florentino Perez Tovilla. The PRI supporters
>apparently released Hernandez Perez and Perez Tovilla. They
>turned the other two over to the authorities in the city of San
>Cristobal de las Casas. Perez Constantino was reportedly beaten
>by both PRI supporters and police agents. [La Jornada (Mexico)
>6/3/99]
>
>The Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Human Rights Center in San
>Cristobal condemned "the free use of violence on the part of PRI
>sympathizers with the acquiescence of the authorities...and the
>inhumane treatment of the detained people while they were being
>transferred." [Fray Bartolome Center urgent action 6/3/99]
>
>*12. MEXICO: CARDINAL'S MURDER STILL UNSOLVED
>
>A commission of representatives from the Mexican federal
>government, the government of the western state of Jalisco and
>the Catholic Church marked the sixth anniversary of the May 24,
>1993 murder of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo by releasing a
>new report on the case. "With the existing evidence at this time
>it isn't possible to believe in the existence of a plot to
>assassinate Cardinal Posadas Ocampo," Jalisco state government
>secretary Fernando Guzman read from the report at a press
>conference.
>
>Posadas Ocampo was shot 14 times at close range as he sat in his
>car in the parking lot at the Guadalajara international airport.
>The government of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari
>claimed that he was killed in the crossfire during a battle
>between two rival drug gangs that left six others dead [see "The
>Mexican Murder Mysteries, Part 1," Weekly News Update supplement
>9/2/95]. The new report dismissed the crossfire theory,
>suggesting instead that the cardinal was killed due to confusion
>during the fighting. But one commission member, current
>Guadalajara archbishop Juan Sandoval Iniguez, expressed
>dissatisfaction with the report. In an interview with Televisa
>television network and various radio stations, Sandoval charged
>that "big fish" were "impeding the investigation," and that
>former attorney general Jorge Carpizo had suppressed videos
>connected with the case. [Associated Press 5/24/99; La Jornada
>(Mexico) 5/25/99; Reuters 5/26/99]
>
>Carpizo angrily replied that he had suppressed no evidence, and
>compared Sandoval to a prosecutor in the Spanish Inquisition. "Do
>the people of Mexico want another Torquemada?" he asked,
>suggesting that he and Sandoval both take a lie detector test,
>"from which very interesting things will emerge." [LJ 5/26/99]
>Sandoval has also charged that some of the witnesses in the case
>are being protected by the US and that others are being protected
>by the Mexican government. [El Diario-La Prensa 5/26/99 from AFP]
>A poll published on May 24 by the Mexico City daily Reforma
>showed 83% of a sampling of 400 people in Guadalajara refusing to
>believe the cardinal was shot accidentally. [AP 5/24/99] In a
>poll published by the archdiocese of Guadalajara, 6% of
>respondents said they believed the official version. [LJ 5/25/99]
>
>*13. PROTESTS SHAKE SURINAME'S PRESIDENCY
>
>Confusing press reports from Suriname indicate that President
>Jules Wijdenbosch is being pressured to step down amid growing
>street protests and a general strike against the deteriorating
>economy in this former Dutch colony wedged between Guyana, French
>Guiana and Brazil. On June 1, Wijdenbosch offered to call early
>elections, but opposition parties are demanding his immediate
>resignation. (The Miami Herald reported that Suriname's National
>Assembly censured Wijdenbosch but said he could remain president
>for the five or six months it would take to organize early
>elections.) The president is less than three years into his five-
>year term. In an attempt to end the protests, Wijdenbosch
>dismissed his entire cabinet of 16 ministers on May 28 and
>promised urgent measures to improve the economy and form a new
>government. The Financial Times reports that the cabinet was
>sacked after it told Widjenbosch to resign. Desi Bouterse, chair
>of the main party in the National Assembly and a former military
>ruler of Suriname who helped Wijdenbosch win the presidency, has
>also told Wijdenbosch to step down.
>
>CNN's Spanish language web site reported that on June 1 several
>pro-government legislators joined with opposition parties in
>calling for Wijdenbosch's immediate replacement with a new
>president chosen by the Assembly. (Agencia Informativa Pulsar, an
>alternative radio news service, reported on June 2 that the
>Assembly had dismissed Wijdenbosch and his entire cabinet, had
>named an interim government and now needed a two-thirds vote of
>the Assembly to elect a new president.)
>
>Some 20,000 people--in a country of 400,000--demonstrated in the
>streets on May 25, demanding that Widjenbosch resign. Opposition
>parties, unions and religious organizations began the protests
>after the Suriname guilder plunged from 700 to 2,000 to the
>dollar in less than a week, provoking a drastic jump in the
>prices of food and other basic goods. Surinamese were already
>struggling with a new sales tax and a 30% gas price hike. [MH
>6/3/99; FT 6/2/99; CNN en Espanol 6/1/99 with info from Reuters;
>Pulsar 6/2/99]
>
>*14. CUBA SUES US FOR DAMAGES, CHARGES NATO HEAD WITH WAR CRIMES
>
>On June 1 eight Cuban popular organizations filed a suit in a
>Havana court demanding $181.1 billion from the US in compensation
>for the victims of attacks planned by the US or US-based groups
>since 1959. The suit seeks $30 million for each of 3,476 people
>allegedly killed in the attacks, $15 million for each of the
>2,099 allegedly left disabled and $45 billion for "general
>hardship." The plaintiffs include the Workers Federation of
>Cuba, the Federation of Cuban Women, the University Student
>Federation, the Committees of the Defense of the Revolution, and
>the Jose Marti Pioneers Organization, a youth group.
>
>"The hostile and aggressive actions carried out by the US
>government against Cuba, from the very triumph of the revolution
>to the present, have caused enormous material and human losses,"
>according to an eight-page document the plaintiffs filed. The
>list of victims starts with several people killed and dozens
>wounded on Oct. 21, 1959, when an unidentified plane strafed
>Havana, and extends to the killing of an Italian tourist in 1997.
>The suit includes 176 killed and 300 wounded in the Bay of Pigs
>invasion by US-sponsored rightwing forces and 73 passengers
>killed in the midair bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976; the
>suit says that there were 637 attempts to assassinate Cuban
>president Fidel Castro Ruz and charges that the US was
>responsible for a 1981 epidemic of dengue fever that killed 158
>people, including 101 children.
>
>The suit noted that the demand for compensation for each victim
>was lower than the $187 million US District Judge James Lawrence
>King awarded to the relatives of three of the four pilots killed
>in 1996 when they were shot down by Cuban military jets over or
>near Cuban waters [see Update #457]. [Miami Herald 6/2/99; El
>Nuevo Herald (Miami) 6/2/99 from services; Reuters 6/1/99]
>
>Also on June 2, Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque asked
>for Spanish socialist Javier Solana, the general secretary of the
>North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), "to be tried as a war
>criminal before an international tribunal in representation of
>all the guilty parties." At his first press conference since
>being appointed foreign minister on May 28, Perez Roque said that
>"[t]he war against Yugoslavia already constitutes a veritable
>genocide, and genocide should be given exemplary punishment."
>Cuba "condemns with all its energy the monstrous crime against
>the Serbian people at the same time that [Cuba] supports the
>right of the Albanian-Kosovars to be fully guaranteed their
>national, cultural and religious identity," Perez Roque said. He
>also used the press conference to confirm that Cuban is sending
>1,000 doctors "absolutely free" to help ethnic Albanian refugees
>from the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. [ENH 6/2/99 from AFP]
>
>Diplomats in Havana suggest that the charges against the US and
>NATO are Cuba's response to a condemnation of Cuba issued by the
>United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva in April. A year
>earlier, the Commission had rejected an effort by the US to
>condemn Cuba's human rights record. The change this year
>reflected concern by a number of nations over Cuba's arrests of
>dissidents and the National Assembly's passage in February of
>laws increasing penalties for a number of crimes and providing
>stiff sentences for passing information to the US government [see
>Update #473]. "It's as if they wanted to say, `Look who's
>denouncing human rights violations [in Cuba] when they're
>committing atrocities in Yugoslavia,'" an unnamed diplomatic
>source commented. [ENH 6/3/99 from AFP]
>
>*15. IN OTHER NEWS...
>
>Haitian justice minister Camille Leblanc announced on May 31 the
>start of an investigation into the shooting of 11 people by a
>special police unit the night of May 28 in the Port-au-Prince
>neighborhood of Carrefour Feuilles. Police say the agents were
>defending themselves from street gangs, while some residents
>charged that the police butchered the 11 people as revenge for
>the murder of an agent's brother. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/1/99
>from AFP; Washington Post 6/3/99] Earlier on May 28, police
>agents had beaten and arrested journalists during an outbreak of
>violence that ended a Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
>(CCIH) demonstration "against crime and anarchy."
>Counterdemonstrators threw rocks and other objects at the
>organizers; many Haitians hold that the CCIH leaders were major
>backers of the bloody 1991 rightwing coup against then-president
>Jean-Bertrand Aristide. [Haiti Progres (NY) 6/2/99]... The
>British daily Financial Times reported on May 19 that Brazil's
>agricultural ministry has authorized the US "life sciences"
>corporation Monsanto to sell five types of its "Roundup Ready"
>genetically altered soybeans for commercial planting. The move
>has been opposed by environmentalists and even some government
>agencies in Brazil, the world's second largest exporter of
>soybeans. Greenpeace has begun legal action to demand an
>environmental impact study; IBAMA, an agency of the environmental
>ministry, cosponsored a similar Greenpeace suit in the past. The
>southeastern state of Rio Grande do Sul, one of the main soya-
>producing states, has passed a law requiring an impact study and
>is considering a five-year moratorium on all genetically altered
>crops. The state is governed by the leftist Workers Party (PT).
>[FT 5/19/99]
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